Not a Hamlin fan, but the yellow line rule is crap, leastways at the checkers. Just like Regan Smith beat Tony Stewart to the line his last year at Gibbs at Talladega, Hamlin beat Busch to the line and should be the winner. Common sense should be for the guy not wrecking the field to stay above an arbitrary line.

I used to think it was dumb, but then i threw down 20 bucks in my uncle's NASCAR fantasy league about 8 years ago and have been semi hooked ever since. you learn a ton of stuff when you actually pay attention.

shafnutz05 wrote:Ah I forgot Richmond. When I was living in Gaithersburg, had tickets to the Saturday night race. We drive down, tailgate, and just as the engines start, the rain begins. Had to drive the whole way back to Gaithersburg (3 hours), and we decided to drive back down the next day to watch the race.

My wife and I's last Dover experience was the worst. Her favorite driver is Stewart...on the 2nd lap of the race, they are involved in a wreck and both are taken out. That's the worst.

Became a NASCAR fan about 7 years ago. I can't stand Jimmy Johnson and Jeff Gordon. I like Bobby Labonte, Tony Stewart, Matt Kenseth, and Denny Hamlin. I've never been to a race yet, but thinking about trying to go to one this year.

FallenHero96 wrote:Became a NASCAR fan about 7 years ago. I can't stand Jimmy Johnson and Jeff Gordon. I like Bobby Labonte, Tony Stewart, Matt Kenseth, and Denny Hamlin. I've never been to a race yet, but thinking about trying to go to one this year.

I grew up with it. My dad helped build dirt track cars and his buddy Tom Peck raced in Busch for a while. I remember being like 5 or 6 sitting in the drivers seat of the racecar while they worked on them.

Point Breeze Penguins wrote:I am really glad they changed the rules about Busch this year. Be nice to see the Busch regulars get some seat time.

I just wish they would go back to the Busch schedule of tracks circa 1995-2000 or so, when most of the schedule was non-congruous to the Cup schedule. That kept Cup drivers from running for the title. Nowadays it's but a couple of split-track weekends, and the Cup drivers doing both have plenty of $ to travel between the two.

superstartreatment wrote:Great lap by the 88 especially going against the wind on the super stretch.

HMS appears to be on their game at Daytona this year, as does RCR. Loved the finish last night in the shootout, even though I hate the yellow line rule. It was far better than the ARCA finish.

Still, last year's 88 finish in the 500, when he almost won despite having a down car, reminds me that it's all about being in the right place at the right time, and avoiding misfortune and other people's mistakes. So the Pole, while nice, means nothing without a finish.

relantel wrote:HMS appears to be on their game at Daytona this year, as does RCR. Loved the finish last night in the shootout, even though I hate the yellow line rule. It was far better than the ARCA finish.

Still, last year's 88 finish in the 500, when he almost won despite having a down car, reminds me that it's all about being in the right place at the right time, and avoiding misfortune and other people's mistakes. So the Pole, while nice, means nothing without a finish.

Agreed. I also think the new pavement and getting rid of the splitter going back to the old nose or something similar to that is going to make some great racing for the twin 150's and next Sunday. As last night showed there was a lot of old school sling shot moves going on. I think it made it verry exciting.

Yeah, I'm happy that Earnhardt won the pole for Daytona, but as we all know, restrictor plate poles are meaningless. I'm hoping he can stay near the front most of the time to avoid the inevitable "Big One", but time will tell.

shafnutz05 wrote:Yeah, I'm happy that Earnhardt won the pole for Daytona, but as we all know, restrictor plate poles are meaningless. I'm hoping he can stay near the front most of the time to avoid the inevitable "Big One", but time will tell.

And there's that stat of Jr having never won from the pole... closest he got may have been the 2000 World 600, when a late caution spoiled his day and gave Kenseth his first win. Jr finished 4th that day - never got back to the lead after losing it on the final round of pit stops on lap 363. Though he was closer in Pocono in 2007, when he finished a distant second to Kurt Busch, leading only 8 laps. Busch would lead 175 laps that day, so 8 was easily good for 2nd most, but the finish was not close.

It's almost as if the Pole is a jinx for him, but Daytona is only his 10th in 400 starts, an even slower pole-per-start ratio than Big E, who had but 22 in 676. This pales in comparison to DW, Gordon, Newman, Johnson(48), Pearson and others. Though looking through it, Big E won from the pole only 3 times...

Watched Speed's "The Day" last night. Very moving recounting of the events of 2-18-01. Suspect they will be airing it more this week leading up to Friday's anniversary date. Not sure when the interviews were filmed, but it is tagged as first airing in 2011. Even kept my wife watching it, when she intended on doing other things last night. She couldn't break herself away from it. We recalled some moments from watching it live (the one time I ever watched a race on my in-laws' main TV), and that we had just crested Town Hill on the way home when we heard the news of his passing.